Monday, September 22, 2008

Well, I would say this was one of the better weekends we've had in a while. As background, back in April (I think), we went on a behind-the-scenes tour at Pimilico Race Course. During this tour, we were taken to one of the training stables, which due to budget restraints, have now moved to Laurel. Anyway, we met an adorable and sweet horse named Gammy's a Winner. Of course, once everyone found out that Gammy was racing that day, they crowded around him, fussed over him, got him all riled up and so on. So naturally, he got worked up, kicking his stall, wasting all his energy, and came in last. Chrissy and I still thought he was adorable, though, and continued to follow his progress. Well, we found out he was racing this past Saturday at Laurel, so we decided to go see him. Our friend Tonya joined us. Tonya didn't bet, she was just there to see horsies. Chrissy and I bet some, but realized early on that it wasn't going to be a good day for wagers. Fast forward to the 9th race - Gammy won! Not only did we basically recoup our losses for the day, but as we're cheering, his owner, Donald Metzger looks up from the Winner's Circle. We asked if he was Gammy's owner, to which he said he was. We told him how we met Gammy on the tour and had been following him ever since, so he says, "Oh? Well come on down and get in the Winner's Circle with me & Gammy for the winning picture!" Our jaws dropped! We immediately ran down into the Circle for the picture. After the photographer (Jim McCue - good guy) took the pic, Mr. Metzger told us he'd get an extra copy of the win photo for us! What a cool guy and what a cool day!

Then, as if that wasn't cool enough, the Redskins beat the Cardinals 24-17! The offense looks like it's coming together. Campbell is looking poised in the pocket, and best of all, is showing some pocket awareness. O-Line is giving him some time to scan through his options. Defense is looking good. D-backs are, for the most part, covering well. They're up for a challenge this week, though. Because this week is... DALLAS WEEK! We have two tough games back to back, against division rivals, on the road, against two of the best teams in the league. If we can really step it up, though, I think we have a shot.

Here are my "4 Keys to the Game." 1) The secondary really needs to jam the receivers at the line and cover TO like nobody's business. I'd rather give up five 10-yard receptions to Witten than one 50-yard pass to TO. Keep the long ball out of TO's hands and he'll be pouting like a baby on the sidelines. 2) D-Line needs to shut down Barber. He's too explosive to let him get a head of steam on his runs. 3) Most of all, we need to pressure Romo! Drop him on his ass a few times, get in his face. Make him make bad decisions. For all the talk about how wonderful he his, let's not forget that this is only his second full season as a starting QB. Watch any Dallas game when the opposing team can get pressure on Romo and you'll see that he will get flustered. 4) Finally, Durant Brooks needs to play like he's in the NFL. If we have to punt, we can't let the Cowboys start off with good field position. Pin them back in their own end zone! I know we have the ability to do all of the above. The team has demonstrated all of these abilities at one time or another. Now, we just need to bring it all together at once. I know we can do it. Hail to the Redskins!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

It's been about three weeks, and hardly a day goes by that I don't think, "Oh, I'm going to need to blog about that." Three weeks later, I've blogged about nothing and damned if I can figure out one thing that I was planning on blogging about.

Ok, one thing - The Redskins. We lost the first game against the Giants. We played pretty piss poor in the first half. The second half, the offense was still struggling, but the defense picked up a bit. As an optimistic fan, I look at the game like this: We were playing the defending Super Bowl champs, we had a new coach and our young QB was learning his 7th new offense in 8 years. We held the Giants scoreless in the second half and only lost by 9 points (7-16).

Second game was our home opener at FedEx Field against the Saints. Being a season ticket holder, I went to the game. I took my sister Gail, who is a big Chris Cooley fan. It was hot as balls out there! It was also insane!! Today (Thursday) was the first day my voice started to sound normal. Actually, someone did ask me this morning if I had a cold. Again, the defense looked pretty good. Offensively, we had a fairly lousy first half. I don't know what happened, but about 2/3 of the way through, Campbell connected to Cooley and BANG!, our offense started working. We were able to run. The vaunted West Coast Offense began connecting. It was amazing. We beat the Saints, 29-24.